npm Without Sudo

Published 2017-12-05 | Go Back

Recently, I have to reinstall npm. It’s a good time to jot down how to install npm locally so that no sudo is required when using npm.

The whole story begins with this issue. Basically, on my machine, npm 5.5.1 crashes every time when I try to update or install packages for Node.js 9.2.0. The solution is to uninstall npm and reinstall it with a higher version like 5.6.0.

It’s debatable whether npm should be installed locally in the user home directory or at the system level. Personally, I prefer not using sudo for npm.

Here is the main reference on how to do this. For me, I did the following steps:

1. Add prefix=~/.npm-packages to ~/.npmrc.
2. Add the following lines to ~/.xprofile:

   # Tell npm about the packages:
   export NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"
   # Tell Node.js about the packages:
   export NODE_PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/lib/node_modules"
   export PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/bin:$PATH"
   export MANPATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/share/man:$MANPATH"
   

3. Reboot so that the new environment variables take effect.
4. Download the npm module from here.
5. Install npm using the normal way: ./configure, make, and make install.

Note that the environment variable settings and where to put them are specific to my machine. You might have to change them to fit in your system.